Belize Reef Monitoring

Belize. The coral reefs of the world are diverse and highly sensitive ecosystems that experience a variety of threats from human populations.  In Belize, we're developing and testing a reef-monitoring method which is low-tech and very sensitive to a variety of disturbances. 

This includes a combination of surveys for coral growth and bleaching, analysis of long-term changes in reef topography, monitoring of fish population, surveys for ecologically and economically important species like conch and lobster, and recording seasonal variation in physical variables such as sedimentation and water temperature.  This work becomes valuable when conducted over the long term to detect important trends and if it is conducted in a way that allows for direct comparisons with other efforts over a large geographic area.  Our monitoring effort is designed with these factors in mind and our researchers are in close communication with all other reef monitoring efforts in Belize.